Hakim, Danny., Richtel, Matt. (June 7, 2019) Warning of ‘Pig Zero’: One Drugmaker’s Push to Sell More Antibiotics. New York Times. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/07/health/drug-companies-antibiotics-resistance.html (Accessed June 10, 2019).
A.) Because of an insurgence of bacteria and viruses that are immune to antibiotics, the World Health Organization is asking the farm industry to refrain from giving healthy animals antibiotics in fear of progressing the trend. However, at a world trade show for pigs this year, the organizers and drug companies behind it were pushing farmers to use their antibiotics for profit, regardless of the fact that the overuse of antibiotics is what is increasing immunity in the new string of viruses. They are also illegally marketing to these farmers by saying that their drugs are a way to fatten their livestock.
B.) The significance of this trend is that if this keeps up, then any new viruses that affect humans through under-cooked meat will be in grave danger as there won’t be a cure to rid of their illness. As the article states, “As bacteria develop defenses against drugs widely used in animals, those defense mechanisms can spread to other bacteria that infect humans; and, resistant germs are transmitted from livestock to humans — through undercooked meat, farm-animal feces seeping into waterways, waste lagoons that overflow after natural disasters like Hurricane Florence, or when farm workers and others come into contact with animals” (Hakim and Richtel 2019). Strategies that were put into place or were put into place by the Obama administration and the F.D.A were regulations that forbade farmers from lacing their animal feed with antibiotics to fatten their livestock. There is also rising consumer demand for the meat industry to provide antibiotic free meat to the market which help cut the usage of antibiotics in 2017. Unfortunately, the meat industry still feeds pigs and cattle loads of antibiotics by 80 percent, and the Trump administration is working with pharmaceutical companies to promote more drug usage and has in fact, appointed the CEO of Elanco, a huge pusher and seller of farm antibiotics, of the agriculture for foreign trade and cultural affairs. Given their slight hesitance to stop using antibiotics in farm feed in defense of the “growing food demands of the consumer”, Elanco plans to combat against this issue by creating alternatives to antibiotics such as, “enhancing the animals’ own immune function, immunizing them against particular pathogens or reshaping their gut bacteria to favor the good ones” (Hakim and Richtel 2019). Though there is still a favor of making a profit out of it over actually solving the issue, as it appears they plan to drag the antibiotic usage as long as possible before they start selling alternatives.
C.) The data presented in the article is accurate to me simply because they leave links towards the studies they are citing, and checking out some of the academic sources they left behind, they all seem to align with the claims they’ve left in the article. In the instance of manipulation, I don’t find it hard to believe that pharmaceutical companies are actively encouraging the overuse of antibiotics, as I’ve heard about this phenomenon before, and the business module of pharmaceutical companies is what we’ve essentially discussed last Sunday when talking about problems within the healthcare industry from the book The Upstream Doctors. Knowledge from the book really hones in the fact that the pharmaceutical module of American healthcare basis itself on profit instead of more social endeavors. Also, this is America: profiting despite ethical and environmental issues is what we’re known for.
D.) I suppose I would want to find out more about antibiotics in general, and how we as a species are going to combat the new incoming viruses. I’m really concerned about our population when the viruses eventually hits us like a truck, and on top of that, we also have diseases that are coming out of the melting icebergs. I would want to know if there was a way to upgrade antibiotics to combat these diseases similar to how the common cold or the flu “upgrades” itself after infecting us a couple of times a year.
E.) I would say that yes I trust the source, considering that the New York Times is usually accurate when reporting their news, at least in my experience. They also have the advantage of using peer-reviewed academic studies to back up their claims, and when it comes to political coverage, they report the same happenings as other general news sources do. For a specific example, the dangers of antibiotic-immune viruses effecting humans from animal contact comes from a peer academic study called Persistence of livestock-associated antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus among industrial hog operation workers in North Carolina over 14 days, which is linked both on here and in the article itself.
F.) I would just like to add that this article honestly gave me more anxiety and fear for what is to come in the future, but it also made me think about ways we can prevent this disaster such as switching to lab-grown meat only, or creating new antibiotics on the diseases that became immune, as shouldn’t our bodies have ways to combat them by now with experience from the previous antibiotics? Or maybe I’m just being too hopeful.
I am one of the many that is concerned about the future with the threat of antibiotic-immune bacteria and viruses. It gives me as it does for you too, anxiety to think about being sick but having no way to cure them. I really wonder why the pharmaceutical companies, as well as the Trump administration, pushes for the use of more antibiotics just for profit, because in the long run what they do will come back and bite us- it is the nature’s law of how negative actions will always have consequences. I guess they don’t care much, because they would probably flee somewhere safe when the pandemic starts. Money would mean pretty much nothing when the new strain of pathogens start to make us sick except for developing a cure- I have a weird image in my mind where some people who pushed antibiotics for profit are surrounded by money but the stacks of cash do not mean anything because they are so sick. Actions must be taken before it is too late.